Thu: I Miss the Library’s Summer Reading Program

A long, long time ago I remember I used to get paid to read. It didn’t really matter what I read, a newspaper, a novel, the Bible, or the instructions to a video game, it all paid the same. “Paid” is a pretty word for what was really going on however. More accurately I was being bribed. Brainwashed into thinking that reading was a good thing and the more you read the greater rewards you would reap. I was young and being manipulated by the public library. It was a good time.

I’m not sure if you (the reader) ever took part in a summer reading program so I’ll briefly explain how this little scheme works. Kids are given a colorful, fun looking boardgame type paper with different paths laid out. Like any boardgame the paths consist of spaces and in the world of Summer Reading Programs a space was equal to 30 minutes of reading. The idea being that for every 30 minutes of reading a kid completed, they were rewarded with progress on this board, which when they finished a path could be shown to a librarian at their local library who would then reward the kid with various prizes. Starting to see some similarities to bribery?

Let’s talk about the prizes for a second. The prizes were basically exactly what every kid ages 6-9 dreamt prizes to be. I can remember winning a small plastic bowling set, one of those cups with a ball attached that you have to swing and try and catch the ball in (I believe the cool name for them is a Bolero), pencils, stickers, amazing book markers, one of those wooden racquets with a ball attached to it by an elastic cord (which gets my vote for the most disappointing toy ever), kaleidoscopes, and probably a bunch of other things I’m forgetting. To add to the greatness of these prizes was that you picked them out of a giant treasure chest. And in case you forgot, a treasure chest is basically one of the top 3 things a kid ever hopes to encounter in their young lives (the other 2 are probably a mish-mash of a rocket, a favorite animal, and/or Santa Clause). Along with the tangible prizes that you took home that same day, you could also put your name in a drawing for other stuff like movie tickets, passes to the wave pool, or a bunch of other pretty cool things. I vaguely remember winning passes to the wave pool once, but the only thing that ever really stuck in my mind from those drawings was my brother winning a poster from Jurassic Park. We had that poster hanging up in our room for man years to come. I wonder what ever happened to that thing.

The Summer Reading program taught me a lot of things. It taught me about the honor system. You were in charge of filling in your spaces yourself for the most part and it occurred to me on more than one occasion that no one would ever know if I had really read all these 30 minute blocks, that I could just initial some boxes and be on my way to treasure chest glory. I’m not really sure what kept me from doing that exactly, maybe my parents and my upbringing, maybe the work of the Holy Spirit convicting me, maybe the librarians at my library that always had an intense look practiced that gave the impression that they could see right into your inner core (to discourage against fines and book abuse allegedly).

The reading program also taught kids something else, it taught them that summers could be productive. That this time could be used to keep busy, to keep learning, and accomplishing. Something that’s been hard to keep in mind this summer as I finally have no real end to the “summer” in sight. I’m not going back to school. I’m not just biding time between semesters. I’m forever in that world where productivity is something that isn’t forced down the throat (a la school) but created through desire for things in treasure chests. One of the verses I was given for encouragement this summer was Isaiah 45:3. It talks about the treasures God promises us, that he has stored for us. So I now realize that as great as the Summer Reading Programs and all their prizes and hoopla were, I’ve appropriately moved on and yet God still takes pleasure in revealing and surprising me with His treasures chests which he “stored in secret dark places” just for me. It’s been and will be an exciting summer. Even without Jurassic Park posters.

"Thu" I miss good Cartoons

If you couldn’t tell, I feel especially strong about cartoons. 66% of kids watch more than 2 hours of TV a day, and I imagine a good chunk of that is cartoons. And today that means possibly 14 hours a week of Ed, Edd, and Eddy, Codename Kids Next Door, Fairly Odd Parents, or at best Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends. What are these shows? How could they possibly be helping kids grow as people? The cartoons I grew up not only were so entertaining that adults usually watched, but they also taught kids something. For example:

Name:Ducktales
Idea:Scrooge McDuck is the richest Duck in the world and he travels the world with his nephews Huey, Dewey, ,and Louie looking for ancient artifacts, new technology and other ways to keep his giant money bin full. Along the way they had to avoid traps from the Beagle Boys who wanted his money, Magica De Spell who wanted his lucky dime, and Flintheart Glomgold who was basically the exact opposite of Scrooge and #2 on the world’s richest ducks list.
And it taught kids…:I would say it taught kids about the importance of family. In a couple episodes I can remember Scrooge having to trade all his money or his lucky dime for the safety of his Nephews. It also taught kids that if they were misers they would one day have a giant bin of money they could swim in. That lesson didn’t really seem to take.

Name: Darkwing Duck
Idea: Darkwing was a spinoff from Duck Tales. It was basically a junior version of Batman for younger kids. He didn’t have any powers, just a gas gun, a sidekick named Launchpad, a high IQ, and a super long intro (it always started with “I am the terror that flaps in the night…” then kind of digressed from there.) Darkwing had to battle a bunch of decent villains including Taurus Bulba (who was a giant bull and had henchmen named Hoof and Mouth), Steel Beak, and Negaduck.
And it taught kids…:About justice, bravery, and that brains is better than brawn.


Name:Animaniacs
Idea: A cartoon sketch show for kids, with a ton of pop culture references and hosted by the puppy/cat looking things that lived in a water tower.
And it taught kids…:Everything. They sang songs about Geography, and Astronomy, they had mice that dabbled in politics and science, they had pigeons that explained street smarts, the show was a 12 year old’s guide to life.

Name:Doug
Idea: Doug Funny is an awkward school kid who journals about his mediocre life. Many kids really connected with this premise
And it taught kids…: Along with the usual shows that taught about being yourself, importance of good friends rather than popularity, and that good family is not to be taken for granted, Doug also taught kids to be “color-blind”. Doug was white, his best friend was blue, his girlfriend Patty Mayonaise was orange, and the mis-understood bully Roger was green.

Name:Bonkers
Idea: Bonkers was a police officer in a world where cartoons and humans co-exist. He had a human partner named Lucky Piquel (They had a “one of us, one of them” policy way before Heroes) who found him annoying yet ultimately through many adventures tracking down cartoons that were breaking cartoon laws, grew to like him.
And it taught kids…: Hating people that aren’t like you is wrong. There was always a kind of racist tone about how the humans treated the cartoons, some of them hated cartoons for no good reason. The show explained that different is good and we should celebrate our differences.

Name:X-Men
Idea: It was the comic books, except it was a cartoon. Probably one of my favorite cartoons ever, it had some really elaborate and complicated stories usually based on a comic book arc.
And it taught kids…: Another racism is bad show (racism must have been really rampant in the early 90’s), but also the importance of integrity. X-men only fought when they had to, in defense of someone who couldn’t fight. They worked as a team to accomplish something together that none of them could accomplish alone. It also touched on consequences of time travel, privacy issues (Professor X reading minds), Sacrifice (the Phoenix Saga), and the evils of big government (Sentinals and evil senators).

Name:Environmental cartoons (Capt Planet, Widget, Denver the Last Dinosaur)
Idea: The planet is dying, kids can save it, but only with the help of a green guy in a belly shirt, a purple alien that could shapeshift, or a dinosaur that skateboards and ime travels.
And it taught kids…: Adults are killing the world, you are going to have to clean it up when you get older, and global warming is imminent. I’m not really thrilled with that message exactly but the shows were entertaining and I’m not wholly against recycling.

These were just some of the amazing cartoons I grew up with. Back when cartoons were good, they taught you something; they entertained you and challenged you, they blew today’s cartoons out of the water.

So my favorite class so far 5 weeks into the semester has been my pop culture communications class. The teacher takes it really seriously, in a good way though. I kind of thought we would just end up talking about how movies and music affect people, that sort of thing. And it’s possible we’ll still go there, but the professor so far has approached it like an anthropology or maybe sociology class. It's been really interesting.

One of the things he pointed out last week was that the pop culture you grew up with will always be way better than whatever follows it or came before it. He couldn’t explain why that is exactly, but it seems about right. 40 year old women chase down Bon Jovi, 30-somethings always talking about how awesome movies in the 80’s were, and kids today actually sit down and watch whatever garbage cartoons that are popular. So even though I feel that this list contains some of the pinnacles of cartooning goodness, there's a good chance I'm more than a little biased.

Thur: I miss Japanese food

I realized today that I have yet to post anything involving food. I'm not really sure what that's about. I'm not a food nut, or aficionado or anything, but still it's a huge part of everyone's life. What other activities have you done roughly 3 times a day your entire life? So to remedy the situation, and because the other day I had a "Hawaiian Roll" (California roll with yellow-fin tuna on top) that left me feeling less than excited to take on the rest of the day, I figured it was time to reminisce about the wonders of the Japanese culinary world.

Some Japanese food is magic. True story.

I'm not really someone who would be described as an "adventurous eater", but then again not everyone can be Andrew Zimmern. I spent a few months in Japan over the summer though and was definitely forced out my box of meat, potatoes and spanish rice. It's considered hugely improper to take food and not eat it over there, so whatever you grabbed going through the cafeteria was going to go inside of you. Because it all looked so foreign, or at times deceptively familiar (such as Eel disguised as BBQ pork) you end up trying some things that you would normally dismiss. Well that, and most of it smells so good; you don't really care what it is.

Let's start with breakfast, because I enjoy proper chronology. Breakfast in Japan is typically Miso soup (a cabbage and turnip kind of thing), Nato (fermented beans) and rice. They also have this thing called the "1000 fold omelete" that pops up every so often. I'm not really a breakfast person so to be honest I don't really miss most of this stuff. Except the rice. I cannot describe to you in words the difference of white rice in America and white rice in Japan. They take it seriously over there, everyone owns at least one rice cooker and it's safe to say they know how to use it. They take it as seriously as Americans take their coffee making. So my typical breakfast would've been a nest egg, rice, and some Charlie Brown cereal. Nothing real special, and the cereal just reminded me of home, so it’s disqualified from being missed.

The best lunches always involved a small restaurant near the place where I was staying called Bochan’s. It was the essence of a mom and pop restaurant. One couple operates the place every day, he works the grill, she chops the vegetables and works the register. They were so hospitable too, it was like eating lunch in their house. She would make small talk with all the regular customers (at least I think it was small talk, they only spoke Japanese) and he would cook amazing food. There wasn’t ever anything eaten at that restaurant that wasn’t amazing. Some of the highlights were yakiniku, which was grilled meat in a special BBQ kind of sauce, torii karage which was some juicy chicken nuggets, and katsu curry which was a pork cutlet in curry sauce (I believe these names are right, it’s been a couple a months). Also the helping sizes were ridiculous. Generally throughout Japan everything is smaller, smaller cups of water, smaller loafs of bread. But not at Bochan’s. They believe in Texas portions over there. If you have lunch at Bochan’s you’re not having dinner. It’s game over.

Assuming you didn’t have lunch at Bochan’s however they was a lot of cool things for dinner. First there was the Sushi on the merry-go-round. It a conveyor belt that just brings sushi past everyone’s table and you just grab it if it looks good. Or you can order a specific dish and they send it out to you on a little train. I wasn’t really sushi person before I went, but after giving it a shot over there it’s now one of my favorites. There’s also ramen, soba, and udon, which are different kinds of noodles that they put in soup. The udon noodles in particular are huge; it’s like slurping shoelaces off a pair of Van’s, size-wise anyway.

This was just a quick list of some of the foods that I can remember off hand. Mostly I remember because of the people I was eating those foods with. I mean I live near a place that serves great udon, and another place that has halfway decent sushi, but I’m starting to realize now that meals are only 45% food, and 55% the people you eat with. So yea, I miss Japanese meals.

Thur: I miss my first car

I mean I wouldn’t trade in my current car for it, but that first car always creates for itself a halo effect as time goes on. Every single nuance and quirk grows a kind of charm that is remembered with a smile rather than the actual muttering and scowl that accompanied things like radio’s that have a mind of their own or engines that would only start if you pumped the gas that special way. It’s surprising how quickly those memories change. Anyway here’s a couple of short memories I have about my first car a 1988 Mitsubishi Starion.

I remember driving through my neighborhood stalling at stop sign and on hills while I tried to get the hang of driving stick. I’m not exactly sure why I wanted my first car to be a manual transmission. Maybe it was because the cars in videogames that were manual always went faster, or more likely because growing up my Dad owned a couple cars that were stick and they were always much more fun to ride in. Either way I grew to really like it, and hopefully never have a car without it.

I remember driving in the rain with it and regularly hydroplaning on turns.

I remember driving home from east mesa with my brother while not being able to take my foot off the gas otherwise it would die (there was a mechanical issue). So at every stoplight people would get the idea that we wanted to race because I was revving my engine, it probably also didn’t help that there were a couple times we inadvertently peeled out when the light turned green.

I remember the AC always read 67 degrees, and if you put it any higher the heater automatically turned on.

I remember the automatic seat belts always knocking the coffee or soda out my hands whenever I started the car.

I remember the bubblegum smell in the middleconsole.

I remember having a ton of semi-random things in my back seat and trunk because it was a new place to keep stuff.

I remember being in that car the first time I was pulled over. I was bringing someone in my family something they needed and had forgot at home so I was in a bit of a hurry. Also I had once heard somewhere that there was no speed limits on the on and off ramps of freeways. Long story short I ended up getting a lengthy and very um... passionate lecture from a Patrolman explaining that on-ramps aren’t like international waters and the law does apply to them, driving that fast will only get people killed (he including a startling amount of anecdotal evidence to support this claim), and how it was also fully within the law to suspend me till I was 18 and take my car. After all the threats he finally let me go with a warning for which I was immensely grateful.

I remember learning how to change the oil on it, and now realizing that that particular car had the oil filter in a crazy hard to reach spot.

I remember the radio sometimes deciding that it was tired and wanting to play at a much lower volume for no real reason.

I remember thinking that flip-up headlights were actually really cool.

I feel like the first anything is always special. The first movie you see at a theatre, the first book you read, your first house, first school, and of course your first car. The idea of the first car is so iconic, talk to any sociology student and they give you 50 reasons for that mostly having to do with the realization of independence, freedom, a larger world etc. I’m not really into examining things that closely and attributing grand ideals to them. I do know that I will always remember my first car. It’s was my interactive classroom for 98.9% of my current mechanical knowledge, the facilitator of a ton of memories, my first real space to call my own, and the stick I will measure every car after it.

Thu: I miss MCC

So the New Year is here, and with it the spring semester, which will hopefully be my last semester (barring any last second, degree pathway, bait-and-switch stuff). I’ve enjoyed my time at ASU and I’m sure for the most part the spring will be pretty cool. That being said, I would never say (and I’m relatively sure you’ll agree) that ASU is the hands down best schooling experience I ever had. There was another I school I attended a couple years ago that also holds some good memories. At the time I was actually going to this school if you asked me to put together a list of good things about this school it would have read something like this:

Good things about Mesa Community College
1) It’s only for 2 years
2) Ummm….it’s close to my house?

Thankfully I’ve had some time, and one of the many wonders of time is that it can sometimes give you a new perspective. With that new perspective I’ve started to realize that I miss taking classes at Mesa Community College.

I’ve always been jealous of the people who came out of high school knowing exactly what they wanted to study at college. I wasn’t even close. Coming out of high school I decided to study to be a Music Educator, which at the time seemed reasonable. I liked music, I appreciated some of my band teachers, and I had no better ideas so I went with it. I think had I decided to major in Music education at ASU there’s a possibility I would have felt somewhat pigeonholed into finishing it out. MCC for good or for bad doesn’t pigeonhole anyone. You could basically take classes in whatever you want till kingdom come for all they care, which for me was a good thing because it let me take that time to try some stuff out and find a major I liked. Which it turned out was not music education.

Really there was only one reason I found that major; the teachers. The teachers I’ve had at ASU have been really good for the most part, but there were very much teachers. The MCC teachers never really felt like teachers, sure they taught the material, but they always felt a little like that Substitute teacher who comes in and feeds you all the answers and then spends the rest of the time talking about their life (I was homeschooled so my exposure to Subs is pretty limited, but the few I'ev sen usually do this). If I was going there for serious education this probably would have been beyond frustrating to me, but I was really just there to poke around and get direction. When you’re looking for direction their really is no better assistance than talking to people who have lived a life, worked a profession and now just teach and try and direct a bunch of aimless college students. They were frank, they would tell you if your major was stupid, or the classes you were taking were a waste of time. I think they could be so honest because they knew they couldn’t get fired for something stupid like hurting a student’s feelings by hitting them with some cold reality. Sometimes I feel like university professors are stepping on eggshells to appeal to the students, telling what they want to hear and such.

The students were different there too. I like the students at ASU for the most part, but they take everything so seriously. Every group project there’s always one kid who is just up the wall emailing everybody 6 times a day to make sure our project (that was usually worth 5% of the grade) is still going well. The kids at MCC all had bigger things to worry about I think. That 5% project takes a backseat to keeping your job or raising your family ( I took lot of classes with people going back to school). It put things in perspective for me, it allowed me to understand where school fits in life, how important it is, and un-important at the same time. It was cool, and sometimes I miss the honesty and that constant reminder of proper perspective.

Thur: I miss my Nana and Tata

First of all, Merry Christmas. I hope this has been a special day for you and your family thus far. Christmas has always been a big festivity in my family. Holidays overall were always observed or celebrated whole heartedly. It’s one of the things I love about my family. Whenever I’ve tried to figure out exactly where this passion for holidays or celebrations comes from, I always arrive at the same answer, my Nana and Tata.

Nana and Tata loved Christmas. Their house was always crazy busy and loud on Christmas day, with relatives and friends stopping by all day to see them, maybe exchange presents and have a tamale. They enjoyed participating in every aspect of the Christmas celebration, their house was always beautifully decorated for Christmas. They always had a real Christmas tree that was decorated by their grandkids or great grandkids. The tree was always overseeing lots of presents too, I’m not sure how they did it every year but they made sure to buy at least one gift for everyone in their family, and usually more than one for the kids. One year they even got all the kids new bikes, something we all talk about this day. Before opening presents though Nana would always make sure that we read the story of Christ’s birth as a family, so everyone would remember the reason for the gifts and celebration. Afterwards people would just spend time at their house. They cultivated such a festive atmosphere of happiness and love leaving their house to continue the circuit of houses that needed to be visited was always incredibly hard. It was something I will always look back on with amazement and gratitude to them for sharing that outlook with the rest of the family.
That was just the kind of people they were though. My Nana was an incredibly generous person with everything she owned. She was the type of woman who never let anyone leave the house without making sure that they had enough food to take home to last them a week. The food never lasted that long though because inevitably people couldn’t help but polish it off in what would probably be considered an unhealthily short period of time :). My Tata was a hard worker who took pride in his home. He enjoyed having people over and teaching them about the things that need to be valued, family, diligence, and God. He might not have sat them down and explained these things in so many words, but he set an example that was impossible to ignore.

So really I miss them throughout the year. Whenever I drive past their part of town, see a western movie on television, work on a car or yard, or make something in the kitchen I think of them. At Christmas though I miss them a lot more, the void they left is just so much larger this time of year. I’m happy about that. I’m glad it hurts every Christmas that they’re not here, because it reminds me how important they were in my and many other people’s life. It’s a pain I value beyond description and hope I never lose. That is, at least until I see them again.

Thursday: I miss "My Spot"

Sometimes in my life, it doesn’t seem like it’s enough to just have a quiet time. Mostly because the pursuit of that quiet which is so necessary to fully enrich that time usually will lead me to my bedroom, a park, or a coffee shop. These places are all well and good, and I enjoy all of them to a point, but there’s some times when you have specific, heavy, questions for God, or such a strong longing to just learn from and contemplate the Word that a special spot is needed. The go-to spot, where the rest of the world has trouble reaching you, you need to search for a clock, and there is a vivid reminder of the greatness of my God. This is my spot:

View Larger Map

It took me roughly 22 years to find it, mostly because I didn’t realize that this particular need could ever be even partially met on this earth. I had tried other spot’s as I mentioned earlier. I would drive around sometimes looking for that spot, especially at those times when I needed it most. There were a couple reasonable possibilities. There was the park near my house that is always empty but still vivid enough to help you think or my backyard early in the morning or late at night when you can’t hear the noise of traffic. You get the idea. All of these places were nice, but they just weren’t IT.

I finally found IT this summer. There were times over the summer that I would really have trouble focusing on and connecting with God. I still can’t explain it exactly. The feeling of disconnection was more intense then I’d ever felt. Possibly because all the usual context of my times with God were gone. My family wasn’t there, the usual friends weren’t there, and the environment was drastically different. After a couple weeks though, I rode my bike out to the nearby ocean to give having a quiet time out there a shot. The beaches in that area were always quiet and you can just climb up on these large man-made blocks that start right on the oceans edge and actually lead you out over the ocean. Sitting out there, staring at the immensity and just listening to the ocean, regular things that usually gum up my mind kind of disappeared. I could read and pray and seek some answers and at times actually find them. So the rest of that summer whenever we had some downtime, realizing that my time with that spot was short, I would go out there and re-charge and learn.

Now I guess I’m searching for a replacement for that spot. There’s always the possibility I’ll get a chance to revisit the original, but for now a new spot is in order. It’s really weird for me, because I’ve always held the mindset that environments and circumstances aren’t that important. They could just be discounted as either token assistance in my walk or slight hindrances. Now however, I’d have to argue that finding “The Spot” is important. It has the power to enliven your quiet time so much. Here’s hoping my search for the next spot is shorter than the search for the original.

Thursday: I miss Choose Your own Adventure books

Remember these books? I do, they were like videogames for middle-class kids. Especially if you got them from the library, which was pretty much the only place I knew of that carried books until I was about 12 years old (seriously I didn’t know they actually sold these things in stores). All these books always had the best plots too; there was the book where you got captured by huge ant alien people, The book where you became a world class bicyclist due to some amazing device that a dying professor gave you (or as I like to call it "The Floyd Landis Story"), the book where you search for treasure a deep sea diver, the book where you’re in a band and 2 of your members get kidnapped an you have to go find them, and so many others. Ahh yes, good times.

Also I remember that on the back of the book s they always had that banner that proclaimed how many possible endings to the story there were, most had somewhere around 18 but if you could find one with 30 possible endings, you knew that book was going to be special. Only you really didn’t completely think it through, because all those endings meant you basically died, or failed within the first 5 pages every time. So you’re sitting there trying to keep bookmarks with your fingers on the previous decisions so when you inevitably die you can go back to that last decision and change your mind and find out if possibly the story could have been a whole lot better if you’d chosen differently. The answer was always the same… “no, not really”. See, for all the options that the books offered, the endings were always, always terrible. There was a huge buildup lasting maybe 15 pages and 5 harowing decisions and then you decide to follow that secret agent into the corridor instead of reporting back to HQ like you should and BLAM!, that was it.

I think the thing I miss most about them was simplicity of the book. It presented you with a crazy story, but then unlike every other boring one-tracked book you’d ever read, it suddenly gave you a chance to change something. It gave you some power over the story, it got you involved. Like I alluded to earlier, it was like the great granddaddy of the gameboy, or I guess at this point the DS,or PSP. And sometimes the simplicity and charm of things like books that give you options about the main characters fate, just can never be matched.